Before we start, we first list what hardware requirements you need to
successfully install Gentoo on your box.

Hardware Requirements

CPU

Please check with the Alpha/Linux FAQ

Memory

64 MB

Diskspace

1.5 GB (excluding swap space)

Swap space

At least 256 MB

The Gentoo Installation CDIntroduction

The Gentoo Installation CDs are bootable CDs which contain a
self-sustained Gentoo environment. They allow you to boot Linux from the CD.
During the boot process your hardware is detected and the appropriate drivers
are loaded. They are maintained by Gentoo developers.

All Installation CDs allow you to boot, set up networking, initialize your
partitions and start installing Gentoo from the Internet.

Gentoo Minimal Installation CD

The Minimal Installation CD is called and
takes up only MB of diskspace. You can use this
Installation CD to install Gentoo, but only with a working Internet
connection.

The Stage3 Tarball

A stage3 tarball is an archive containing a minimal Gentoo environment, suitable
to continue the Gentoo installation using the instructions in this manual.
Previously, the Gentoo Handbook described the installation using one of three
stage tarballs. While Gentoo still offers stage1 and stage2 tarballs, the
official installation method uses the stage3 tarball. If you are interested in
performing a Gentoo installation using a stage1 or stage2 tarball, please read
the Gentoo FAQ on How do I Install Gentoo
Using a Stage1 or Stage2 Tarball?

Stage3 tarballs can be downloaded from current-stage3/ on any of the Official Gentoo Mirrors and are not provided
on the LiveCD.

Download, Burn and Boot a Gentoo Installation CDDownloading and Burning the Installation CDs

You have chosen to use a Gentoo Installation CD. We'll first start by
downloading and burning the chosen Installation CD. We previously discussed
the several available Installation CDs, but where can you find them?

You can download any of the Installation CDs from one of our mirrors. The Installation CDs are located in
the current-iso/ directory.

Inside that directory you'll find ISO files. Those are full CD images which you
can write on a CD-R.

In case you wonder if your downloaded file is corrupted or not, you can check
its MD5 checksum and compare it with the MD5 checksum we provide (such as
.DIGESTS). You can check the MD5 checksum
with the md5sum tool under Linux/Unix or md5sum for Windows.

Another way to check the validity of the downloaded file is to use GnuPG to
verify the cryptographic signature that we provide (the file ending with
.asc). Download the signature file and obtain the public keys:

When your Alpha is powered on, the first thing that gets started is the
firmware. It is loosely synonymous with the BIOS software on PC systems. There
are two types of firmware on Alpha systems: SRM (Systems Reference
Manual) and ARC (Advanced Risc Console).

SRM is based on the Alpha Console Subsystem specification, which provides an
operating environment for OpenVMS, Tru64 UNIX, and Linux operating systems. ARC
is based on the Advanced RISC Computing (ARC) specification, which provides
an operating environment for Windows NT. You can find a
detailed guide on
using SRM over at the Alpha Linux website.

If your Alpha system supports both SRM and ARCs (ARC, AlphaBIOS, ARCSBIOS) you
should follow these
instructions for switching to SRM. If your system already uses SRM, you
are all set. If your system can only use ARCs (Ruffian, nautilus, xl, etc.) you
will need to choose MILO later on when we are talking about bootloaders.

Now to boot an Alpha Installation CD, put the CD-ROM in the tray and reboot the
system. You can use SRM to boot the Installation CD. If you cannot do that, you
will have to use MILO.